Time well spent in quarantine: "Christian Van Vuuren was diagnosed with TB and has spent the last 55 days quarantined to a single hospital room. Instead of feeling sorry for himself, he made this amazing rap video. I hope he recovers, I want to hang out with him."

Republicans and Democrats alike will like this video. Kennedy's seat barely got cold and it went to a Republican?!?! OMFG! This had better wake up some folks. Boring old Croakley sat on her ass and took Kennedy's seat for granted. Pretty boy Brown kept smiling, fought hard and won. Congratulations Mr. Brown.

Cliff May and Jon Stewart debate the recent torture issue. It's good to see folks who come from such opposites sides of an issue, but who are able to do an actual exchange. It's not pretty but it seemed sincere. BTW: I'm with Jon Stewart on this issue.

It has been a hard fought Presidential campaign and it was really refreshing to see Obama, McCain, and Clinton at the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, an annual charity fund raiser for Catholic Charities. A good number of genuinely funny jokes by both Obama and McCain last night. By coincidence, I'll be dining with friends tonight and most of them lean much more on to the right than I do.

There's so much good stuff from the TED conferences (Technology Entertainment Design) [ted.com], that I have a hard time posting any of it. "The Seemingly Impossible Is Possible" by Hans Rosling (a Swedish professor in International Public Health). An incredible presentation. Very hopeful, informative, beautiful, and funny. It has a surprise ending too. It shows hope for progress in the Third World. Combined with the progress in artificial photosynthesis, the outlook for the future is quite bright!

There are a number of Eddie Izzard skits re-enacted with legos, but I think this was the best of the bunch since my son plays so much of the Lego Star Wars computer game. The F-word but my kids loved it!

Way to go dude! The revolution has begun! I liked these two comments in the Reddit thread:

Stage 1 - "Haha, look at that guy over there, he looks like a fool"
Stage 2 - "Look, that other guy is making fun of him, let's all point and laugh"
Stage 3 - "Hey, another has joined in making fun of the dancing dude, boy he must be embarrassed, what a tard!"
Stage 4 - "Hmm, there's more people dancing now, what a bunch of followers"
Stage 5 - "Wow, everybody is running over there to dance! I now stand out because I'm NOT dancing"
Stage 6 - "Wait for me! I want to dance too!"

I've done quite a bit of sociological research on the psychology of crowds. What you see in the video is actually a good example of the kind of population distribution needed to, say, start a revolution. The populace can be so incredibly anxious to join in (in a revolution, they'd be pissed and angry, here, they want to dance and have fun), but you still need the first person, or the first few couple people, to actively participate without the safety net provided by numbers. (In revolutions, these guys are either the traitors or patriots, depending on the outcome, and their existence can be caused by any number of factors, from economic status to religion to traditional beliefs to, well, anything that could get them to stand up against authority.) This is typically the stage where large movements either stall out or start to actually have an effect.
This was just dancing, but it's a microcosm for how a lot of societal changes in general actually work.

Stage 7 - "I always thought dancing dude was cool! I was going to join him earlier, but you guys beat me to it."

Wow. Call the guy crazy all you want, but listen carefully to him and you realize not only does he make a valid legal point, he's non-violent, he composes an improvised song while being pinned down by two cops and then *runs away* while being **tazed** and actually takes the time to tell them he considers it self-defense. Dude seemed pretty with it to me. What I want to know is why he was being pinned to the ground by two cops in the first place. And did he get caught?

I want to know how the cops were not able to cuff him? Too much pressure from knowing they were being video taped?

They have discovered but one portion of my fire-breathing technique! Yes: I consume the bacon/prosciutto and store it about my waist. (Krispy Kreme will do as well)

However they missed two key parts: I have learned special breathing techniques that allow me to expel pure oxygen, and I am also able to generate a spark in my mouth by using strawberry flavored Pop Rocks. Thus I can, upon command, combine the bacon with the pure oxygen in my sinuses, then I light it with the Pop Rocks spark as I rapidly expel it.

The effect is almost as good as laughing while chocolate milk is coming out of my nose.

WGN-TV weekend anchors Bob Jordan and Jackie Bange do a little dance number each Saturday and Sunday night during their telecast's first commercial break. Word is that it started out as a short 10-second dance, but now they have choreographed it into the full 2:40 of the break.

The debate skit is funny but the Palin skit is funny and painful because they used words actually spoken by Palin. There are so many articles out there wincing about the Palin and Couric interview. Couric was being nice, Couric was giving Palin opportunities to shine, but all Palin could do was stumble on talking points. If I were prone to believing in conspiracies, then I would propose that this is all a ruse by Palin in order to make the Democrats let their guard down. If not, then it is frightening to think that the GOP machine has such power that it can dupe half the country into wanting Palin to become one 72 year old's heartbeat away from becoming President. There are college kids who know more about the issues than Palin. For the security of America and the world, I sure hope that it is all a ruse.